


The Siberian Wizard and the Magic Cloak

by sgt_majorette



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death Eaters, Ficlet, Post-War, The Quidditch Pitch: Darkness Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-19
Updated: 2008-08-19
Packaged: 2018-10-27 08:57:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10805904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgt_majorette/pseuds/sgt_majorette
Summary: "Grindelvald killed many people, my grandfather, for instance." --Viktor KrumSo where was Clan Krum at the Battle of Hogwarts? Everything in its time...





	The Siberian Wizard and the Magic Cloak

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** The Clan Krum ballad cycle continues: the destruction of Fenrir Greyback. It's a songfic, but the song is in Bulgarian. Don't make me sing it to you.

  
Author's notes:

Edited to correct the fact that author forgot to tell you what the Cloak was all about...

* * *

He was no warrior, the gentle priest, her husband, but the blood of the old vojvodes coursed through his veins, and so he faced the rogue wizard with the courage of his ancestors; but he was no warrior. His wife, heavy with their last child, wept as she stood by his coffin, but her tears were not for him. She herself came of warrior blood; her great-grandmother had given birth in the saddle, riding a dragon into battle. With one hand she wrapped her newborn in her cloak and slung him over her shoulder, throwing curses of fire and death with the other. The priest's wife wept tears of anger, of lust for vengeance. But as she stared at his still face like a saint carved in ivory, she felt his hand on her shoulder and his voice low in her ear: “ _No.”_

The rogue wizard was brought down by the lover of his young days, and that was good. So when the child was born, she said, “He will go to the Church, like his father.” She found for her youngest son a wife with a warrior spirit, a young girl with hero's heart.

Another rogue wizard came up, far away in Britain. The old lady thought, I can _fight_ , still! But the voice in her ear, the hand on her shoulder… even after the wicked one's followers cursed her son's son to do their bidding, and he had come to her shaking with guilt and shame. And then _this_ rogue was defeated by children led by a child, as had been prophesied.

So she would sit and spin, and sometimes her daughters-in-law would sit with her, and they would sit silently, spinning and spinning. One night the old lady had a dream. She saw her first love standing on the banks of the River of Hell. His eyes, their gaze so sweet and mild in life, were blazing.

_“I will drink the blood of the werewolf!”_

* * *

The vojvode’s old widow sat under a pine tree spinning a fine thread, when a hawk flew down low. The spindle leapt from her hand, and she said, “Go, then! Hunt down the wild wolf on the mountain, and when you have done that, gather up the stinging nettles that grow deep in the forest!”

Up in the highest tower in the castle, old Srebra laughs as she sets up her loom.

They are gathering, all the women, young ones to old, daughters and daughters-in-law. All are tall and slim, all are fair and rosy-cheeked; to which will Baba give the magic cloak, gathered on the high mountain, spun in the dark forest, woven in the highest stone tower?

To the youngest daughter-in-law will it be given, to Valja the priest’s wife, because she has a hero’s heart. 

* * *

A dark shadow crossed the full moon: it was a dragon that roared and spit fire as it flew down to the tops of the forest’s trees. The dragon rider leapt to the ground, her long black hair on the wind and her long gray cloak swirling.

Slowly she stared around her.

“ _Vere-volf_!” she cried. Several shadowy figures crept toward her, growling.

“Back, rabble! I want the motherless son of a hundred fathers who calls himself Fenrir!” The growling creatures slunk backward, cringing at the sound of her voice. “Show your mangy, flea-bitten hide!”

A huge slavering beast lunged at her, but she only laughed as she raised her left arm, bringing up from beneath her cloak a great black weapon from which she fired a blast that threw the beast backward into a shallow, smoking crater.

“Hear me! I am Valja Sokolova, daughter of the Hawk clan, daughter-in-law to the blood of Khan Krum, drinker of blood! I am sent to destroy you, and your pack, with thunder and flame!” Then she raised her right hand, and with a silver weapon she fired a ball of fire; Fenrir Greyback was no more, he was ashes. 

* * *

Valja Sokolova folded the gray cloak in a purse of white silk, and this she bound to her body for safekeeping, for she was going on a long journey, to a secret place in Siberia, to visit a powerful wizard and ask him for a gift. “For,” she said to him, “you will know by this cloak which has been given to me the enemy I face, and only you can give me the weapons I need.”

The old man was not pleased. “What, is Gregorovitch dead? I do not carve silly figures on wooden sticks! And what concern is this English nonsense of yours or mine?”

Valja drew herself up straight and tall, and clicked her heels as she saluted. “Major Sokolova, of the Bulgarian Army, asks this of you, General!”

This made the old man smile. So that is why the wizard Kalashnikov made for Valja Sokolova the silver weapon for her right hand and the black one for her left. 

* * *

In the light of the sun, when the moon had turned its phase, the den of the werewolves of Fenrir Greyback’s pack was littered with naked, burnt and broken human bodies. For the big ones, the dragon rider had killed, every one; but the little ones, the terrified, whimpering pups – them she had gathered under her gray cloak and taken away.


End file.
